Part 33 (2/2)

Continuing in this plain, we saw at a distance, on our left hand, a small village called Suckfoat. It belongs to the Druses, who possess at this day a long tract of mountains, as far as from Castravan to Carmel.

Their present prince is Achmet, grandson to Faccardine, an old man, and one who keeps up the custom of his ancestors of turning day into night, an hereditary practice in his family, proceeding from a traditional persuasion amongst them, that princes can never sleep securely but by day, when men's actions and designs are best observed by their guards, and, if need be, most easily prevented; but that in the night it concerns them to be always vigilant, lest the darkness, aided by their sleeping, should give traitors both opportunity and encouragement to a.s.sault their persons, and by a dagger or a pistol to make them continue their sleep longer than they intended when they lay down.

Two hours from Faccardine's grove brought us to the fifth caphar, and another little hour to the river Damer or Tamyras, the former being its modern, the latter its ancient name. It is a river apt to swell much upon sudden rains; in which case, precipitating itself from the mountains with great rapidity, it has been fatal to many pa.s.sengers.

Amongst the rest, one Monsieur Spon, nephew to Dr. Spon, coming from Jerusalem about four years ago, in company with some English gentlemen, in pa.s.sing this stream, was hurried down by it, and perished in the sea, which lies about a furlong lower than the pa.s.sage.

We had the good fortune to find the river in a better temper, its waters being now a.s.suaged since the late rains. However, the country fellows were ready here, according to their trade, to have a.s.sisted us in our pa.s.sage over; in order to which, they had very officiously stripped themselves naked against our coming; and to the end that they might oblige us to make use of their help, for which they would be well paid, they brought us to a place where the water was deepest, pretending there was no other pa.s.sage besides that, which cheat we saw them actually impose upon some other travellers, who came not long after us. But we had been advised of a place a little higher in the river, where the stream was broader and shallower, and there we easily pa.s.sed without their a.s.sistance. Just by this place are the ruins of a stone bridge, of which one might guess by the firmness of its remains that it might have been still entire, had not these villains broke it down, in order to their making their advantages of pa.s.sengers, either conducting them over for good pay, or else, if they have opportunity, drowning them for their spoils.

On the other side of the river, the mountains approach closer to the sea, leaving only a narrow rocky way between. From Damer, in two hours, we came to another river of no inconsiderable figure, but not once mentioned by any geographer that I know of. It is within one hour of Sidon. Its channel is deep, contains a good stream, and has a large stone bridge over it. Speaking of this river to the reverend father Stephano, Maronite patriarch at Can.o.bine, he told me it was called Awle, and had its fountain near Berook, a village in Mount Liba.n.u.s.

At this river we were met by several of the French merchants from Sidon, they having a factory there the most considerable of all theirs in the Levant. Being arrived at Sidon, we pitched our tents by a cistern without the city, but were ourselves conducted by the French gentlemen to the place of their habitation, which is a large khan close by the sea, where the consul and all the nation are quartered together. Before the front of this khan is an old mole running into the sea with a right angle; it was of no capacity at best, but now is rendered perfectly useless, having been purposely filled up with rubbish and earth by Faccardine, to prevent the Turkish galleys from making their unwelcome visits to this place. The mole being thus destroyed, all s.h.i.+ps that take in their burden here are forced to ride at anchor under the shelter of a small ridge of rocks about a mile distant from the sh.o.r.e, on the north side of the city. Sidon is stocked well enough with inhabitants, but is very much shrunk from its ancient extent, and more from its splendour, as appears from a great many beautiful pillars that lie scattered up and down the gardens without the present walls. Whatever antiquities may at any time have been hereabout, they are now all perfectly obscured and buried by the Turkish buildings. Upon the south side of the city, on a hill, stands an old castle, said to have been the work of Louis IX. of France, surnamed the saint; and not far from the castle is an old unfinished palace of Faccardine's, serving, however, the pasha for his seraglio, neither of them worth mentioning, had the city afforded us any thing else more remarkable. Near about Sidon begin the precincts of the Holy Land, and of that part of it in particular which was allotted to Asher; the borders of which tribe extended from Carmel as far as Great Zidon, as appears from Josh. xix. 26, 28. But the people upon the sea-coast were never actually mastered by the Israelites, being left by the just judgment of G.o.d to be thorns in their sides, for a reason that may be seen in Judges, ii. 1-3, &c.

The person who is the French consul at Sidon has also the t.i.tle of consul of Jerusalem, and is obliged by his master, the French king, to make a visit to the holy city every Easter, under pretence of preserving the sanctuary there from the violations, and the friars who have the custody of it from the exactions, of the Turks. But the friars think themselves much safer without this protection. We were desirous to join with Monsieur l'Empereur, the present consul, in this year's pilgrimage, and, accordingly, had sent him a letter from Aleppo on purpose to bespeak that favour, hoping by his protection to pa.s.s more securely from the abuses of the Arabs and Turks, who are nowhere so insolent as in Palestine and about Jerusalem. We had his promise to stay for us; but the remoras and disappointments we met with on the road had put us so backward in our journey, that, fearing to be too late at Jerusalem, he set out from Sidon the day before our arrival there, leaving us, however, some hopes, that if we made the best of our way we might come up with him at Acra, where he promised to expect our coming to the latest moment.

_March 20._-Being desirous, therefore, not to lose the convenience of his company, we set out early the next morning from Sidon, and, travelling in a very fruitful plain, came in half an hour to a place where we found a large pillar of granite lying across the high way, and sunk a good part under ground. Observing some letters upon it, we took the pains to dig away the earth, by which means we recovered this fragment of an inscription:-

IMPERATORES CAESARES L SEPTIMUS SE VERUS PIUS PER TINAX AUG: ARA BICUS ADIABENICUS PARTHICUS MAXI MUS TRIBUNICIA POTES: VI. IMP: XI. COS []

PRO . COS . P . P ET M . AUREL: ANTONI NUS AUG: FILIUS . EJUS ........ ET ..... ARIA .... EN ... DIUM . RV FVM .............

.... IC PR: PRAET ... PROVINC . SYRIAE [ET PHAE] NIC RENOVAVERUNT . [ ] .

Some gentlemen of our nation, in their journey to Jerusalem this last Easter, anno 1699, found another pillar, about midway between the one we saw and Sidon, of the same make and use, from which they took the aforesaid inscription more perfectly. As far as _filius ejus_ there is no variation, and after that it goes on thus:-

VIAS ET MILLIARIA FR ... O . VENIDIVMRV FVM . LEG . AUGG .

L ... PR . PRaeSIDEM PROVINC . SYRIAEPHOE NIC . RENOVAVERUNT . I .

By which we may observe the exactness of the Romans in measuring out their roads, and marking down upon every pillar the number of miles, as I. II. III., &c.

A little beyond this pillar, we pa.s.sed in sight of Ko-ri-e, a large village on the side of the mountains, and in two hours and a half more came to Sarphan, supposed to be the ancient Sarephath, or Sarepta, so famous for the residence and miracles of the prophet Elijah. The place shown us for this city consisted of only a few houses on the tops of the mountains, within about half a mile of the sea; but it is more probable the princ.i.p.al part of the city stood below, in the s.p.a.ce between the hills and the sea, there being ruins still to be seen in that place of considerable extent. From thence, in three hours, we arrived at Casimeer, a river large and deep, running down to the sea through a plain, in which it creeps along with various meanders and turnings. It had once a good stone bridge laid over it of four arches; but of that nothing remains at present except the supporters, between which there are laid beams and boards to supply the room of the arches, and to make a pa.s.sage over; but so careless and loose is the fabric, that it looks like a trap rather than a bridge. We had one horse dropped through, notwithstanding our utmost care to prevent such misfortunes; but it was our good luck to recover him again safe on sh.o.r.e.

This river is a.s.signed by our modern geographers for the old Eleutherus, but how erroneously has been before mentioned. Strabo mentions a certain river falling into the sea near Tyre, on this side[542], which can be no other than this, but he omits to acquaint us with its name. Within a bow-shot of the river Casimeer is a khan of the same name, from which, keeping near the sea-side, you arrive in an hour at Tyre.

This city, standing in the sea upon a peninsula, promises at a distance something very magnificent; but, when you come to it, you find no similitude of that glory for which it was so renowned in ancient times, and which the prophet Ezekiel describes[543]. On the north side it has an old Turkish ungarrisoned castle, besides which you see nothing here but a mere Babel of broken walls, pillars, vaults, &c., there being not so much as one entire house left. Its present inhabitants are only a few poor wretches, harbouring themselves in the vaults, and subsisting chiefly upon fis.h.i.+ng, who seem to be preserved in this place by Divine Providence, as a visible argument how G.o.d has fulfilled his word concerning Tyre, viz. that it should be as the top of a rock, a place for fishers to dry their nets on[544].

In the midst of the ruins there stands up one pile, higher than the rest, which is the east end of a great church, probably of the cathedral of Tyre; and why not the very same that was erected by its bishop Paulinus, and honoured with that famous consecration sermon of Eusebius, recorded by himself[545], this having been an archiepiscopal see in the Christian times?

I cannot, in this place, omit an observation made by most of our company in this journey, viz. that in all the ruins of churches which we saw, though their other parts were totally demolished, yet the east end we always found standing and tolerably entire. Whether the Christians, when overrun by infidels, redeemed their altars from ruin with money; or whether even the barbarians, when they demolished the other parts of the churches, might voluntarily spare these out of an awe and veneration; or whether they have stood thus long by virtue of some peculiar firmness in the nature of their fabric; or whether some occult providence has preserved them as so many standing monuments of Christianity in these unbelieving regions, and presages of its future restoration, I will not determine. This only I will say, that we found it, in fact, so as I described in all the ruined churches that came in our way, being perhaps not fewer than one hundred; nor do I remember ever to have seen one instance of the contrary. This might justly seem a trifling observation were it founded upon a few examples only; but it being a thing so often, and indeed universally, observed by us, throughout our whole journey, I thought it must needs proceed from something more than blind chance, and might very well deserve this animadversion.

But to return from this digression, there being an old staircase in this ruin last mentioned, I got up to the top of it, from whence I had an entire prospect of the island, part of Tyre, of the isthmus, and of the adjacent sh.o.r.e. I thought I could, from this elevation, discern the isthmus to be a soil of a different nature from the other two, it lying lower than either, and being covered all over with sand which the sea casts upon it as the tokens of its natural right to a pa.s.sage there, from which it was, by Alexander the Great, injuriously excluded. The island of Tyre, in its natural state, seems to have been of a circular figure, containing not more than forty acres of ground. It discovers still the foundations of a wall, which anciently encompa.s.sed it round at the utmost margin of the land. It makes, with the isthmus, two large bays, one on its north side and the other on its south. These bays are in part defended from the ocean, each by a long ridge, resembling a mole, stretching directly out, on both sides, from the head of the island; but these ridges, whether they were walls or rocks, whether the work of art or nature, I was too far distant to discern.

Coming out of these ruins, we saw the foundation of a very strong wall, running across the neck of land, and serving as a barrier to secure the city on this side. From this place we were one-third of an hour in pa.s.sing the sandy isthmus, before we came to the ground which we apprehended to be the natural sh.o.r.e. From hence, pa.s.sing over part of a very fertile plain, which extends itself to a vast compa.s.s before Tyre, we arrived, in three quarters of an hour, at Ras-el-ayn. Our whole stage, from Sidon hither, was about eight hours.

_Sunday, March 21._-Ras-el-ayn is a place where are the cisterns called Solomon's, supposed, according to the common tradition hereabouts, to have been made by that great king, as a part of his recompense to king Hiram for the supplies of materials sent by him toward the building of the temple. They are doubtless very ancient, but yet of a much later date than what this tradition ascribes to them. That they could not be built till since Alexander's time may be conjectured from this, amongst other arguments: because the aqueduct, which conveys the water from hence to Tyre, is carried over the neck of land by which Alexander, in his famous siege of this place, joined the city to the continent; and, as the cisterns cannot well be imagined to be more ancient than the aqueduct, so one may be sure the aqueduct cannot be older than the ground it stands upon. Of these cisterns there are three entire at this day, one about a furlong and a half distant from the sea, the other two a little farther up.

The former is of an octagonal figure, twenty-two yards in diameter. It is elevated above the ground, nine yards on the south side and six on the north; and, within, is said to be of an unfathomable deepness; but ten yards of line confuted that opinion. Its wall is of no better a material than gravel and small pebbles; but consolidated with so strong and tenacious a cement, that it seems to be all one entire vessel of rock. Upon the brink of it you have a walk round, eight feet broad, from which, descending by one step on the south side, and by two on the north, you have another walk twenty-one feet broad. All this structure, though so broad at top, is yet made hollow, so that the water comes in underneath the walks, insomuch that I could not, with a long rod, reach the extremity of the cavity. The whole vessel contains a vast body of excellent water, and is so well supplied from its fountain that, though there issues from it a stream like a brook, driving four mills between this place and the sea, yet it is always brim full. On the east side of this cistern was the ancient outlet of the water, by an aqueduct raised about six yards from the ground, and containing a channel one yard wide; but this is now stopped up and dry, the Turks having broke an outlet on the other side, deriving thence a stream for grinding their corn.

The aqueduct (now dry) is carried eastward about one hundred and twenty paces, and then approaches the two other cisterns, of which one is twelve, the other twenty yards square. These have each a little channel, by which they anciently rendered their waters into the aqueduct; and so the united streams of all the three cisterns were carried together to Tyre. You may trace out the aqueduct all along by the remaining fragments of it. It goes about one hour northward; and then, turning to the west at a small mount, where anciently stood a fort, but now a mosque, it proceeds over the isthmus into the city. As we pa.s.sed by the aqueduct we observed in several places, on its sides and under its arches, rugged heaps of matter resembling rocks. These were produced by the leakage of the water, which petrified as it distilled from above, and, by the continual adherence of new matter, were grown to a large bulk. That which was most remarkable in them was the frame and configuration of their parts. They were composed of innumerable tubes of stone, of different sizes, cleaving to one another like icicles. Each tube had a small cavity in its centre, from which its parts were projected, in form of rays, to the circ.u.mference, after the manner of the stones vulgarly called thunder-stones.

The fountain of these waters is as unknown as the contriver of them. It is certain, from their rising so high, they must be brought from some part of the mountains, which are about a league distant; and it is as certain that the work was well done at first, seeing it performs its office so well at so great a distance of time.

Leaving this pleasant quarter we came, in an hour and a half, to the white promontory, so called from the aspect it yields toward the sea.

Over this you pa.s.s by a way about two yards broad, cut along its side, from which the prospect down is very dreadful, by reason of the extreme depth and steepness of the mountain, and the raging of the waves at bottom. This way is about one-third of an hour over, and is said to have been the work of Alexander the Great. About one-third of an hour farther you pa.s.s by a heap of rubbish, close by the sea-side, being the ruins of the castle Scandalium, taking its name from its founder, the same Alexander, whom the Turks call Scander. The ruin is one hundred and twenty paces square, having a dry ditch encompa.s.sing it; and from under it, on the side next the sea, there issues a fountain of very fair water. In an hour from hence you come to the sixth caphar, called Nachera; and in another hour to the plain of Acra, over a very deep and rugged mountain, supposed to be part of Mount Saron. All the way from the white promontory to this plain is exceeding rocky; but here the pleasantness of the road makes you amends for the former labour.

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